Over the last few months most Australian OHS regulators, and many labour law firms,have been conducting workshops and public seminars on Australia’s plans to harmonise its OHS legislation. In those workshops, the consultative process and timeframes have been described by some as a “nightmare”, which is not exactly inspiring participants who are seeking clarity from … Continue reading “Safe Work Method Statements and independent positions”
Melody Kemp in Vientiane writes: The apoplectic brouhaha that greeted Wikileaks in the past few months has shown us the power of the internet to upstage, discomfit and enrage. Governments like corporations operate under a variety of ‘commercial-in-confidence’ scores, the cadence of which changes with the degree of self interest at hand. That Wikileaks has … Continue reading “The Social Media is the Message”
Some of the media, over the weekend, was critical of BP for not applying a Safety Case to the BP/Deepwater horizon oil rig. The Safety Case is an established method of assessing risk in high-hazard organisations and should have been applied. Whether such a technique would have made any difference is debatable as it is … Continue reading “Safety Cases must become a reality in the US”
The last sixty years’ of research into the effects of hours of work, shiftwork, associated workload, fatigue and affects on social life and families has produced many findings, but no general detailed agreements. There are interesting debates about who and what to research, what methods to use, what to measure and how to interpret results. … Continue reading “All exposure standards must consider hours of work”
Australian OHS research has raised some concerns about the “adequacy of personal fall arrest energy absorbers in relation to heavy workers“. In summary: “The research demonstrates that most energy absorbers are not able to ensure that the two test criteria are not breached during the arrest of a heavy worker in the worst case scenario fall.” … Continue reading “Can current fall protection systems save fat people?”
In early October 2009, Workplace Health and Safety in Queensland (WHSQ) released a raft of media statements about recent court cases involving OHS prosecutions. WHSQ seems to do this regularly rather than releasing each statement individual. Below is a quick cut and paste from the media reports: Brown Engineering & Construction Pty Ltd has been fined $38,000 after a worker … Continue reading “Recent Queensland OHS prosecutions”
Earlier this week Queensland MP Tim Nicholls, of the Liberal-National coalition gave the Queensland Transport Minister, John Mickel, a serve over the $10 million program on level crossing safety by calling the response “window dressing”. Nicholls seems more interested in political point-scoring than safety but he asks “What has happened to all their much vaunted … Continue reading “Political argy-bargy on level crossing safety”